Have had a couple good ones.
First was when I was a kid, growing up on an Iowa farm. Was over at Granddad�s and was outside messing around. Saw a rabbit take off and run between two of the round Belen grain bins and disappear behind an upside-down wooden pallet. Though maybe there was a hole under it. I crept around one of the bins and spotted the rabbit laying on its side behind the pallet. Its feet were toward the pallet and it was literally quivering with fear. I was able to sneak up and grab it from behind.
The best big game stalk involved elk. We were hunting rolling sage country when, through the binoculars, I spotted a head skylined over the slope of a hill about a half mile to the south. When the head dropped back below the hill we started working our way that direction. When we got to the crest of the slope we found the elk bedded down on the top of a knoll below us. We worked our way closer, staying behind the slope of the hill and, when that was no longer possible, creeping through the sage on our hands and knees. We closed the gap by a couple hundred yards or more but the elk were still 600 yards away and below us. There was a shallow drainage between us so any attempt to get closer would expose us on the hillside. It was now about 11:30 in the morning.
We hid behind some sage at the edge of a drop-off, trying to figure out a way to get closer, as none of us were prepared for a 600-yard shot. We saw a number of good bulls in the herd but they were too far away to judge accurately with our pocket binoculars. As the day progressed the sun gave way to clouds, rain, sleet and snow in succession, then finally clear skies, but we still couldn�t figure a way to get closer without exposing ourselves and spooking the herd. At one point the elk got up and we thought they would move, but after a while they quieted down and bedded again. As dusk approached the elk started to get up and feed their way off the knoll in a direction that quartered away to our right. We backed away from the drop-off, again crawling on our hands and knees to stay below the sage tops, until we were safely behind the slope of the hill again. Once there we trotted along behind the slope, gradually getting closer to where we thought the elk were headed. We quickly ran out of slope for cover and had to bend down, then crawl on our hands and knees again. By doing so we closed the gap to about 450 yards. Dusk was upon us and the end of shooting light was rapidly approaching.
The sage in front of me was shorter now, not even knee high, and crawling on my hands and knees would leave me exposed. An inch or two of fresh snow covered the ground, hiding the barrel cactus that was everywhere. I decided the best approach would be to go on my back,, head first, pushing myself through the snow with my feet. Doing this I was able to cover another hundred yards. A 5x6 bull had bedded down behind a cow and was 350 yards out. I had been practicing at ranges out to 400 yards but didn�t have a shot due to the cow. As shooting light ran out both elk got up but the cow continued to block any shot at the bull. They started to walk off to my left and just as I decided a shot opportunity wouldn�t materialize the bull stopped, falling behind the cow and presenting a perfect broadside shot. A 160g Grand Slam from my 7mm Rem Mag dropped the bull in its tracks. It got back up and took a couple stumbling steps. Just as the trigger broke on a second shot the bull fell again, for the last time.
Five minutes more and legal shooting hours would have been over. From the time we first spotted elk to the shot was about 6-1/2 hours.
